Cross border work burned me so very hard a few years ago.
I live in Canada, but got a position with Amazon where I'd fly around the US (and occasionally other countries) to do upgrades and launches of Amazon warehouses. Paid in US dollars because I was working in the US. A lot of fun, working with some of the best co-workers I've ever had. Most Monday mornings, I'd get an Uber to YYZ Toronto and fly to some new city and be back by Friday night.
Where I got burned was the weeks I did not fly anywhere and worked from home doing prep work. I didn't sync correctly with payroll and HR that I was doing this work in Canada, which implies that the Canada Revenue agency was owed my taxes for those days, not the IRS. But the company paid my taxes to the IRS since I was a US worker. (To be clear, they had a system to avoid this problem but I didn't understand and didn't set it up right).
Come tax time, I owed the CRA $15,000, and the IRS owed me $15,000. But there was 3-month long gap between the date to pay and the date I'd get my refund. We managed, but yeah that wasn't fun at all.
How could you have such a lucrative career and somehow not have $15k liquid somewhere? You could even just take out a margin loan from your brokerage and not liquidate any securities.
In my experience, when the tax man comes calling, it’s always just after a big move, big purchase, far away death in the family, or some other life event where you have less savings than normal.
I live in Canada, but got a position with Amazon where I'd fly around the US (and occasionally other countries) to do upgrades and launches of Amazon warehouses. Paid in US dollars because I was working in the US. A lot of fun, working with some of the best co-workers I've ever had. Most Monday mornings, I'd get an Uber to YYZ Toronto and fly to some new city and be back by Friday night.
Where I got burned was the weeks I did not fly anywhere and worked from home doing prep work. I didn't sync correctly with payroll and HR that I was doing this work in Canada, which implies that the Canada Revenue agency was owed my taxes for those days, not the IRS. But the company paid my taxes to the IRS since I was a US worker. (To be clear, they had a system to avoid this problem but I didn't understand and didn't set it up right).
Come tax time, I owed the CRA $15,000, and the IRS owed me $15,000. But there was 3-month long gap between the date to pay and the date I'd get my refund. We managed, but yeah that wasn't fun at all.